Flora, Fauna, and Kites
by Rurouni Idoru
Summary: Why did Kurama become a thief? Kurama reflects on the events that led up to his rebellion. Rated for events that small children should not have to live through.
1. First Encounter

Flora, Fauna, and Kites

by the Rurouni Idoru

Rurouni's note: This is probably going to be a two or three parter. It was inspired by the song "White Kite Fauna" by K's Choice. What does this prove? Well, besides the fact that K's Chocie is brilliant, it tells_ me _that I listen to way too much K's Choice.

Disclaimer: I don't own Yu Yu Hakusho, I don't own Kurama, and I wish I owned K's Choice. But I do own Fujita. And I'm glad for that.

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Do you want to know a secret about my past? In my younger days, back when I was revered and feared as a thief, I was more emotional than one might think. I was even moved to tears on several occasions, and I'm sure if you heard the tales today, you might cock an eyebrow at me, and wonder if you were still talking to the great Youko Kurama. But it's true. Oh, of course it was never in front of anyone, and if it was, they're certainly not alive to testify to it anymore. But I have cried. And more than that, I've cried for people. Of course, I got fairly teary when Kireihana died. She was, after all, my first partner, and the first person I had felt I could trust since my childhood. But about that childhood.... Well, perhaps you think you know me well. One of my many fans, who say they know all there is to know about me. But if you said that, you would be very wrong.

It may surprise you to hear about my childhood. And it would probably surprise you even more to know that as a child, I was sweet and well-behaved. After all, if I were such a good, model child, how did I become the ruthless bandit I was? At that remark, I laugh. I know what I've been through. I think now that I was just attention-starved. Kireihana would most likely agree with me. Maybe that was why we ended up growing so close, we were both spotlight hogs, no matter what transparent excuses we used. She was so like me in that manner. She could see through me, and I could see through her. Just like I could see through him, even as a child....

I was actually raised in a big Youko family, the middle child of five. I had three sisters; Chihiro, the youngest, Midori, the second youngest, and Kuri, who was older than me, but not the oldest of the group. That title belonged to my brother, Fujita. Fujita was...the only word that could ever fit is "amazing." Perhaps that's because I knew him only as a child, and he meant the world to me then. Why? Well, because my father had left my mother after she became impregnated with Chihiro, and I was very young at that time. I have fuzzy memories of him, but they're very old. It's as if my memories of childhood are movies stored in reels in my mind. Most of the reels involving my father are missing or worn out from age. His abandonment of us made my mother very bitter, and she focused mostly on my sisters, and ignored Fujita and myself. I could have singlehandedly saved the family from some sort of plague, while Fujita created world peace, and she would probably say we should take a page from Kuri's book. No matter what we did, we were never good enough for her, because we were male, just like the hurtful Youko who had left her for reasons I cannot remember.

After Father left, Mother moved us to go live with her sisters, so they could all help each other raise the children. This, of course, made me matter even less to her, because Mother was busy taking care of little cousins, and gossiping with aunts. The only males she encountered there were children, because two of her sisters' mates had died, and her other sister had a reputation for being...loose. Mother tended to leave the little boys to her other sisters. Males, I once heard her say to her sister, made her nauseous. The male cousins tended to stay away from us, few as they were, so Fujita and I were on our own. Although, between us, I liked it that way. I thought Fujita was some sort of diety or something. He was the closest thing to a male role model I had ever had, and I looked up to him in ways you wouldn't believe.

He was quite handsome, I remember that well. Even today, should a girl compliment me on my looks, or swoon and giggle in my presence, there's still that critic inside me. That tiny little voice that says to me, "Oh, please. I'm nothing compared to Fujita." The females loved him. And he loved them back. But, being the wonder-brother that he was, I always came before the girls. We were peas in a pod. In our later escapades together, I began to think that we could be a real threat to the ladies, the way we stuck together. And yet, another part of me was jealous. As if I didn't stand a chance next to him. But of course, that was one of the thing I shot for in my later years. I tried to be as charming, and as pleasing to the eye as he was. That critical part of me still thinks I failed, but I have been told otherwise. Of course, those who said there was no one better than I, they had never seen Fujita.

But, jealous as I sometimes was, at that point in my life, no one had been closer to me. He was better to me than anyone. Which is why it stung so much that day. I can still picture it vividly in my mind. It still hurts to think about what happened.

When I was young, about the equivalent of an eight-year old human, we went out to go fly a paper kite. It was sturdy, simple, and perfect. His size and maturity were about that of a twelve-year-old human boy, and so, we went out together, children. I clearly remember, our cousin Michiru stuck her spoiled nose into our business. You see, everyone treated her like an angel, and she behaved like a princess for it. She was treated well for being so cute, of course. She was roughly my age, but I was just a bit older. Granted, she didn't show that that was the case, because she acted like all were inferior to her.

"What are you two doing? Flying a kite? Please. How old are you?" I, being the unrefined little child I was at the time, made a sort of pouty face and prepared to tell her that girls were icky. Fujita, however, had a leg up on my idea.

"Well, we're older than you, so you really shouldn't be worrying." I grinned wildly as my hero put his arm around me and led me back into the direction of our journey. Thankfully for me, Michiru didn't hold our childhood squabbles against me many years later, when we were both theives who could use partners. Her distraction and defense were superb. The amount of times her hypnotic powers got us out of trouble rivals the number of times Kireihana's smooth-talking skills did the same. But I digress. Fujita and I headed into a clearing, quite a walk away from home. All that was in the area with us was an old well, that had obviously been unused for a very long time.

"Fujita-niisan?" I smiled up brightly at him, clutching the kite in my arms.

"Yeah, Kurama?" He gave me that beneolent grin, that grin that told me he'd protect me for the rest of his life. I felt so safe when he grinned at me that way.

"I'm really glad you like to do these things with me. Kuri would never wanna go fly a kite with me." His grin turned slightly mischevious.

"Well, that's 'cause Kuri has the cooties. She knows we're much better than her, so she doesn't want to hang around us. She knows she'll give us her cooties and then we'll be lame like she is." I laughed, as if there were never anything funnier said.

"You're neat, Fujita-niisan." He chuckled.

"Thanks." He gazed off ino the distance, and then acknowledged the kite. "You should start unrolling that string. There's a good wind coming." I nodded energetically, and the fun began.

Of course, this story wouldn't be the tale of how I became a ruthless thief if something terrible didn't happen. It grew dark far too soon. That was alright, our mother didn't care how late we stayed out. She had the girls to tend to, she had no reason to be bothered with us. But it was when the kite plummeted out of the sky and into the well that things went wrong. I shouted in childish grief as it zoomed into the well.

"Come back! Come back!" I ran after it, but once it got to the well, I realized it was a lost cause.

"Ah, don't worry. We can just make a new--" He didn't finish the sentence. Because the kite was coming _back out of the well_. A lizard-like youkai slithered out of the well, kite in hand.

"You know..." he began, slowly, frighteningly high-pitched, "I could accept it when you little kits played around our territory. I could accept it when you even stayed after dark, when we come out. But now, you drop your dumb little toy into what is practically my bed? Do you know what we do to little kits who play around too much and disturb our territory?" I trembled. I could tell by his heavy breathing that Fujita was scared too. But Fujita showed courage that I had never seen.

"What do you mean by 'we?' I only see one of you." The lizard smiled wickedly.

"Oh, do you, child?" I tried to scream, but I couldn't even make the sound. More and more lizards crawled out from behind bushes and trees. They all began licking their lips and looking at us in the same way I would later look at precious metals and gems. They were hungry.

"Oh...my...Inari-sama...." Fujita wrapped his arms around me. Tears began to stream down my face. I began to whimper helplessly. I buried my face in his chest.

"We'll make a deal with you, kits." The lizard in the well continued to horrify me. "If you can get back your little kite," He tossed it directly into a tree, "then we'll kill you before we eat you, quick and painless. If you can even manage to get away, we won't come to your den and eat your mother, too. But if we can catch you, kite-free, we'll eat you raw." There was a gratutious pause and the other lizards all agreed that this was the proper thing to do. "We'll give you a five-second head start. Five..." Fujita picked me up and ran faster than I knew he could. His footsteps pounded against the ground, and his breathing was frantic. But all I could do was continue counting down like the lizards, my head wrapped up in his arms and torso and my eyes squeezed shut. Four....

I felt him weave in and out, between trees, jumping over fallen logs, and wheezing as he carried me. Three....

"We're gonna be okay, alright, Kurama? We'll be home soon, and then we'll be fine." I nodded and sobbed. Two....

"I don't want them to eat me, oniisan...." One...

"They won't." Zero.

The lizards were coming after us. Fujita ran faster than he had been before, his breathing beginning to strain. He removed one arm from around my tiny body to aim it over his shoulder.

"Kitsune-bi!" I heard some leaves and twigs catch fire on the ground. "That oughta hold 'em off...for at least a moment or two...." He continued running like I'm sure he never had before. He continued setting small fires periodically. I continued crying. We heard the lizards struggling with the burning fodder behind us. But I know that he never looked back. My pointed ears were brushing his chin, and I would have felt it if he looked back. But he was intent on getting us home. And do you know the amazing part? He did it. He got us there. He somehow managed to shake the lizards. We got back to the den. He put me down gently, and fell over, tears in his eyes. Fujita clutched his side, and fell unconscious. No one would help us but Kuri, who ran down to the nearby stream to soak a piece of cloth and put it on his forehead. And she held me while I cried for him.

So, you may be wondering, how did this experience turn me into a ruthless thief? Well, had it been alone, it would not have ruined my life so. But this was not a stand-alone incident. Something else, many years later, was what turned this day memorable.


	2. Second Encounter

Flora, Fauna, and Kites

by the Rurouni Idoru

Rurouni's Note: Chapter two! Incidentally, I'm sorry for any repitition and/or redundancy that may occur. I'm just not very good at writing in Kurama's POV. Luckily, this fic makes good practice. Oh, and his comment about "centuries to come," Kurama is, in fact, several centuries old. Look it up. There should be only one more chapter after this, two at the most. It's a short, sad little story.

Disclaimer: I don't own Yu Yu Hakusho. I'm not that brilliant. However, Fujita belongs to ME. You take him, I gut you with a rusty spoon. (Or at least get mad at you.)

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It was quite a lot of years after leaving home for good that I went back to the clearing. I recall, it was after the early death of Kireihana, and I returned to where the tragedy had occured. Perhaps I wanted closure. It was originally supposed to be a sort of pilgrimage back to my old den, but I could not bring myself to go any farther than the clearing. After the crippling memories there, I didn't want to deal with other childhood issues. It wasn't the first encounter that haunted me and kept me for my den. It was the second encounter.

Several years after we lost the kite (and the lizards, for that matter), the two of us found ourselves on the prowl. No, it wasn't food we were searching for. I had hit puberty recently. I feel I need not explain what my prey was any further. At any rate, Fujita and I were out on an "adventure" of sorts, visiting many places and meeting many young ladies. This, of course, was a pastime I would continue to enjoy for centuries to come. We'd had a nice time, nothing too memorable. But then, as all good stories go, we got lost on the way home.

"Ugh." Fujita slumped his shoulders and pointed at a tree. "I saw that tree ten minutes ago. We're goin' in circles." The two of us sighed. "I oughta move to Ningenkai."

"Why's that, 'niisan?"

"I hear that they pave over the forests in Ningenkai. It's near impossible to go anywhere and not be assured that there's an inn or a bar nearby. And where there's an inn or a bar, there's someplace to stay for the night. If we can't get home, we can at least try to find a place to stay for the night." He had a good point. I looked around, biting my lip.

"Well, it's not dark yet. We can still try to get home before the girls start worrying about us." He nodded and we set off again. It wasn't too long until we reached the clearing with the well. I blinked a few times. Now, it had been a good deal of years since we had been there last, so I didn't quite recall it. "We been here before, Fujita?"

"Yeah, I think this is where we flew that kite. Remember?"

"Oh yeah. With the lizards." Fujita nodded. Then, he furrowed his brow, paused for a moment, and quickly climbed up a tree. I raised an eyebrow in confusion.

"Look at this!" He leapt down from the tree and landed in front of me. He grinned wildly as it dawned on me. He was holding a white kite.

"Is that...?" I reached out to touch it.

"Yep! It's like a miracle or something. I have no idea how it survived out here. It's even sturdier than we intended, I guess." I looked around, smiling.

"Y'think those lizards are still here?" He grinned smugly and waved his hand dismissively.

"Nah. Their lifespans aren't nearly as long as ours. If they were already fully grown by then, they're probably dead by now." I sighed in relief.

"Good. It's getting dark. They'd come out soon." I distinctly remember shuddering at the thought of what they might do to us if they saw us in their turf again.

"Let's head home, Kurama." He put his arm around me. "I'll show you how to do that thing with your eyes that the girls like." At first, it felt sort of like a corny movie ending, walking together, older brother and younger brother. Until, of course, we had taken our third steps. It was then that we heard a chillingly familiar voice.

"Hello, kits." We stopped immediately.

"Oh Inari, please let that be one of the girls from before trying to mess with us...." From what he had just said, I decided that Fujita must have been far more hopeful than I. Slowly, we turned around. There he was. The reptile who had slept in the well, and threatened to eat us years ago. In his arms, he was cradling a young doe maiden. Her small eyes were shut as she hiccupped in pain. She was bleeding from the abdomen. I felt ill at the sight of her innocent blood spilled so carelessly.None of it made sense to me. Fujita had said that he would be dead. Fujita couldn't be wrong, I didn't think it possible.

"'Niisan, didn't you say...?"

"I underestimated their lifespans." Wonderful time for Fujita to prove to me that he wasn't a god. This was the worst time for underestimating. It would cost us our lives, I was positive.

"I see you've finally gotten your kite. Looks like dinner tonight is going to be prepared in the way that humans do it. Pity. Fear, pain, screams...They always make the meat taste better. And fox meat is always better than deer meat. Go." He dropped the doe, and she crawled away as quickly as possible, weeping and clutching her stomach in agony. The lizard looked directly at us. "This time, you won't get a head start."

"Oh Inari-sama. Ohhhh, Inari-sama." I sort of prayed, and Fujita put his arm around me.

"I want you to run." I looked up at him, stunned. Run? Wasn't he going to run too? If we were going to be cowards, couldn't we do it together?

"And leave you?"

"Now, now. Don't run! You're my special dinner guests!" The lizard was slowly walking toward us, savoring each step as it scared us more.

"Run, Kurama!"

"But Fujita, I--"

"Let's have the smaller one first. They're always more tender."

"Go!"

"Fujita!" He glared at me, which he had never done before. His eyes burning into mine, along with what he said next, compacted my decision.

"Get to safety." I swallowed hard and nodded. As quickly as I could, I ran around through the forest around the clearing. I deliberately ran around to confuse the lizard into thinking I had headed for home. In reality, I had run back to the opposite end of the clearing, and hid behind a large rock. I decided to stay nearby, in case Fujita needed my help.

"Oh-ho, so 'niichan wanted his 'totochan to go back home to 'kaachan so he could be big and brave? No matter. Foxes are good at any age. Your brother would have only been easier to chew!" The lizard lunged, and Fujita was put on the defensive. The whole struggle stays in my mind in the same dreamy way as my first kiss, or my first real heist. Only much worse. And it was what I recalled on the day I came back as an adult. At first, it seemed like Fujita could keep up evading long enough to wear the reptile out. My hopes of this strategy were dashed when Fujita twisted his ankle. The lizard quickly gained the upper hand. I was horrified. I can't describe the rest of the fight in detail. It hurts so much just to remember in the first place. But I can tell you exactly how it ended. The reptile violently slashed my brother's stomach apart in a violent thrusting motion. I gulped in fear as I watched Fujitacough up blood. The lizard moved in for the kill, but Fujita was not going to let this fight end with his consumption. He let out a final cry, and ended the battle.

"KITSUNE-BI!" And the lizard screamed. The magic of the Fox Fire turned him to ash amazingly quickly. But he was not my concern. I ran up to my older brother.

"Fujita!" I grabbed hold of his hand, tears in my eyes. "Fujita, get up! We gotta go home! Kuri's gonna ask where we've been and she's gonna make us eat some old burnt chicken and...Fujita!" He gave another cough, more blood spattering out of his mouth. Perhaps I felt ill at the sight of the deer girl, but at the sight of my brother mortally wounded, I became_physically_ ill. I wiped my mouth and streams of tears ran nonstop down my face. Fujita stopped breathing. I can remember the horrific sight of my brother's once charming, expressive eyes, now blank and soulless.

My big brother Fujita was dead. And next to us lay a white kite, with spattering of red stains across it. And that was the memory that prevented me from ever going back to my den once I had left for good. Kireihana's death was premature, but Fujita's was much moreso. I will never forget the image of my brother's death. Sometimes I even see it in my dreams.


	3. The End of the Beginning

Flora, Fauna, and Kites

by the Rurouni Idoru

Rurouni's note: Woo, long chapter. I was feeling very tearjerky today, so I decided to write the next chapter. It took me two days (Mostly during any tiny bits of spare time in class, heh-heh-heh...) but I finally pulled it off. It's a pretty long chapter, almost six pages handwritten. It's the final chapter, but worry not, there'll be more sad insights from Kurama in the future. (And as long as I feel like writing, you can expect plenty of total crap!) As always, review if you like it, and if you hate it...review anyway!

Disclaimer: I don't own Yu Yu Hakusho, or Kurama. But I do own Fujita, Anna, Kuri and Kurama's other sisters, and Kurama's ever-hating birth mother. So dun take 'em.

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It was that time when I came back that the words of my sister rang in my mind. I cried alone, cradling the bloodstained kite. And what had my sister told me that was so important? Well, I suppose I'll need to tell you the story of the aftermath, not only to explain what my sister said, but to explain precisely what it was that turned me to theivery.

I cried over Fujita's body until I could no longer find it possible to cry anymore. But as I walked home, my tear ducts seemed to get their second wind. My aunt, Anna, had been looking for us. When she heard me sobbing on the way back to the den, she found me.

"What is it Kurama, what's wrong? ...Where's Fujita?" I sniffled.

"He's dead!" She stared at me in disbelief.

"Don't play with me like that, Kurama. You don't joke about things like--"

"I'm not joking! Come see for yourself!" And so, that led me back to the clearing with Aunt Anna, back to the place where my brother had fallen. Upon seeing his lifeless, bloodied body, and that blank stare, she inhaled sharply and her hand flew to her mouth in horror. "See? A lizard killed him." I was crying like a baby once again. "So now I'm just gonna be alone and Ma's gonna hate me more than anybody and...and...." I buried my face in Aunt Anna's chest. She remained calm.

"I'll help you bring his body back to the den." So Aunt Anna and I brought him back. I did most of the work, being stronger than her, but I quite appreciated her help. Bringing your brother and best friend's body home is not an easy task. I remember the nasty shock it gave my sisters. Chihiro became very confused and kept telling Fujita to wake up. Midori ran to her sleeping burrow and didn't come out for a week. Kuri, like myself, threw up. My mother was at another part of the den when we came home. I decided that it was my duty to seek her out and tell her that her son was dead. In retrospect, that was a lousy idea.

"Ma..." I said, walking up to her, "I have some bad news. She looked at me with utmost disdain. All I could think was, _Don't look at me that way. Not after my brother just died. _"It's Fujita. He's...he'd dead, Ma." She looked away from me and said what proved to me that the den was the last place I should be spending my life.

"Just as well." My mouth fell open.

"But Ma, it's your son! He's dead!" I swallowed the tiny bit of moisture in my mouth in an attempt to gain more confidence. That attempt failed, by the way. "It's not like when he ran away to stay with that girl for a few days! He's never coming back!" She glared at me.

"Good." I was sure that her eyes would burn a hole right if her thick pearly hair wasn't in front of one of them. "One less thing for me to worry about. One less male to break some poor girl's heart!"

"Ma!" Ma was apparently sick of my talking. At least, that was the message I got when she struck me across the head and knocked me down. I stood up, shook my head, and ran off. And that was when I met up with my sister, Kuri, again. I could tell from her red eyes, wet cheeks, and runny nose that she had been crying too.

"Kurama...." She put her arm around me. "You were there, right?" I nodded. "What was it like? I mean, did he go all valiant-like, or was he running away with his tails between his legs?" I shook my head again.

"He told me to run, and the lizard got him. He used kitsune-bi on the lizard and they both died." I paused. "It was very bloody."

"I could tell." She sighed. "So, Ma's been giving you a hard time?"

"As always."

"She hit you agan?" I nodded.

"She says it doesn't matter. She even says it's good." Kuri sighed.

"Ma says a lot of things. If she said you were a girl, would you agree?" I thought about the irony in what she had just said. I would never be good enough to be compared to any girl as far as my mother was concerned.

"I just kinda feel like it's my fault. I mean, if he wasn't worried about me, he could've gotten away." I looked at the ground. "He wouldn't even have been there if he'd left when he came of age like he should've." At this point, I should explain, I was roughly the equivalent of fourteen. Fujita died at what would have been about eighteen for humans. Coming of age, for Youkos, was at the parallel to age fifteen.

"Well, if he had left then, he'd prob'ly have done some'um stupid and got killed earlier. You know him, always a thrillseeker. Your being so important to him probably kept him alive so long." I looked around for no real reason.

"So you're saying I kept him alive for a couple years." Kuri smiled at me and uttered the words that I remembered clearly when cradling the kite years later.

"Not only did you keep Fujita alive for _many_ years, little man, but you gave him a reason to live. He loved you so much he refused to leave, even with Ma treating him the way she did." I smiled.

"I guess you're right." I began to think about what Fujita would miss out on in life. "When I come of age, I'm leaving. I'll live for Fujita. And I'll be famous, too. That'll show Ma." Kuri laughed.

"Fair enough. That's probably what he wanted anyway." She grinned. "I bet you really wanna get away from Ma, too."

"Well, yeah." We smiled at each other.

"Aunt Anna said that I should use my kitsune-bi for the cremation 'cause I'm the oldest now. You wanna go find something nice to put him in?"

"Sure." I paused again. "Do you think we could bury the urn?" Kuri appeared confused.

"I guess, but why?"

"I know the perfect place for him." It was then that I performed my first act of larceny: I stole one of my mother's wedding gifts. It wasn't much, just a nice laquered water jug with a cork in it. That was what we put Fujita's ashes in. I decided that, since I had no money, Fujita would want me to use something of Ma's. That would teach her to respect the dead. I buried the urn/jug at the base of the well in the clearing. Since Kireihana's death, I try to visit once every hundred years or so, when I grow a new tail in fox form.

Long after Fujita's death, I too was mortally wounded. I, however, was able to take refuge in a human womb. And it was the experiences that this led to that made me realize that all I've ever wanted was approval. If my real mother couldn't be bothered to care when her son died, would she care if the other son killed? I wanted fame so that she would notcie me. I wanted her to look at "Wanted" posters, and be forced to at least think, "That's my boy." Every partner who was put in danger, who was captured or killed, I've always had that feeling Fujita's death gave me: Is this my fault? Someone I cared for is gone, and I feel responsible. Why do you think I try so hard in school these days? I'm trying to make my mother believe that I'm worthy of her love, so she won't leave me, like all the others have. Even though I know I don't need to, I do. I've never been loved unconditionally before. When you've spent centuries earning love, it's a hard habit to break.

I remember when her husband died. I (and by "I," I mean "Shuichi") was still very young. I instantly knew I had seen this before. Her lover had left her, and his seed would suffer for it. The way she cried and cried for days, it scared me. I wondered if, perhaps, humans could cry themselves to death? I wondered if, perhaps, she would do just that and leave little Shuichi an orphan? It would be better than the treatment I was sure I'd receive. As she cried her final official tears at the sight of her husband being lowered into the ground, I looked at her. She sobbed and hiccupped, and then she stopped. She turned her eyes directly at me. I did my best "cute terrified child in anguish" and braced for the blow to the head my birth mother would have given me. She sniffled and leaned in toward me. And then, she amazed me. She wrapped her arms around me and held me in the same warm, firm way that Fujita used to. She picked me up, looked me in the face, and tried to smile.

"We'll move on, right? You'll be my world now, Shuichi-chan." She kissed me on the head, quite a new experience, and carried me away. That was when I decided to let this woman, Shiori, live. She loved me. She was my mother. I was no longer the brat, the burden, that little annoyance. I was her baby, the love of her life. I wasn't treated like a rash, I was treated like a treasure. So maybe I would never have Fujita, or anyone else who had cared for me ever again. Maybe I would never get Ma's approval. But I had a mother who loved me. And I supposed, when all is said and done, that was all I ever really wanted.


End file.
